Latvian Bank Chief Charged With Taking Bribes, Free Fishing Trip
Ilmars Rimsevics, head of Latvia’s Central Bank and board member for an influential European Central Bank policy making committee, has been charged with accepting bribes and favors including demanding a free fishing vacation to Russia.
The case has put the ECB in a tight spot as it refused to act against him while it was unfolding, raising questions about his country’s financial system and showing corruption is allegedly at the highest level of the European Union’s banking programs. He told public broadcaster LSM: “I completely deny all these allegations.”
Prosecutor Viorika Jirgena said that two shareholders with the bank Trasta Komercbanka reported the corruption case to law enforcement authorities and would not be prosecuted, the Associated Press reported.
Jirgena said that in 2010 one of the shareholders asked Rimsevics to help the bank handle problems with the financial regulator and in return he was offered the fishing trip, which the AP showed in a photo of him in 2010 in Kamchatka in eastern Russia.
He was with the head of a Russian military technology company and former owner of a Latvian bank, both sanctioned by the United States for money laundering.
In 2012, when both Trasta Komercbanka shareholders asked for help from Rimsevics, “They made an agreement that a bribe of 500,000 euros (currently $580,000) will be given,” Jirgina said but Rimsevics said the allegation of a free fishing trip “seems to me to be close to incredible.”
Rimsevics, 53, has been under a cloud of suspicion since February when he was questioned by Latvian anti-corruption authorities but he said it was a smear campaign by commercial banks without explaining why they would target him.
The AP also reported in February accusations by another banker, Grigory Guselnikov, that was similar to the Trasta Komercbanka case in which Guselnikov said Rimsevics repeatedly asked for bribes in exchange for help with the financial regulator and that the Latvian bank chief wanted him to launder money from Russia. If found guilty he faces 3-11 years in jail.
The case took a twist with the US saying the Latvian bank ABLV laundered money from Russia and North Korea to help them evade sanctions, helping them to evade sanctions and also bribed officials in Latvia to carry out the clandestine transactions.
While Rimsevics has been barred from doing his job he can’t be fired by the government because his position is politically independent and untouchable. The ECB has stood by him and asked the European Court of Justice to let him stay on the board unless he’s convicted.
Trasta Komercbancka’s license was revoked in 2016 after regulators said “the bank (has long) committed serious violations on a number of important activities,” the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reported.
In his position, Rimsevics has access to state secrets of Latvia, NATO and the EU. Fredrik Erixon, Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, told the Bloomberg financial news agency that, “The saga reflects badly on everyone and erodes the credibility of central banks in Europe.”